The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemison, has two elements that I usually draw back from: it's part of a series (it's the first volume of The Broken Earth Trilogy) and it has a glossary of terms in the back. Books that are part of a series are usually not my thing, as I resent having to get several different books to follow the story. The Harry Potter books could at least be read as stand-alone volumes. I have read the first books of many series but not continued them, notably The Game of Thrones. The TV series has done much better with the concept.

So that I might, I repeat might, continue with this trilogy is praise from me. While the first book doesn't really wrap anything up, I am not adverse to reading the next two. And all three won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. That's like all three Lord of the Rings movies winning Best Picture Oscars.

The Fifth Season is set on a continent that is constantly shifting due to plate tectonics. It is also subject to cataclysms, that are called fifth seasons (like an extra winter). The continent, ironically called The Stillness, is perpetually being destroyed and rebuilt, and could be seen as a metaphor for Earth, or what Earth may become.

There are three story threads, all featuring women. Essun is a teacher and secretly an orogene, or someone who can manipulate the earth and temperature. They can start or stop an earthquake, or freeze someone solid. Essun's husband finds out what she and their children are, and kills a boy and takes off with a girl. She follows and tries to find her daughter.

Danaya is a young orogene who is sent away from her parents, who are horrified by her, to a place called The Fulcrum, where orogenes are trained. She has some typical boarding school problems.

The most visited woman is Syenite, an orogene who is sent on a mission with Alabaster, the most powerful orogene there is. The Fulcrum wants two things: Alabaster to impregnate Synenite, so there will be more orogenes, and to clear a coral reef in a seaside town. Syenite finds that the obstruction is far more disturbing than a reef. There is a big twist that smarter readers than I can figure out.

The world-building in The Fifth Season is very well done, with a well-delineated society (orogenes are seen as not human, and are only permitted for their usefulness). Jemison also has fun with language. In addition to inventing terms, she gives the characters different swear words. Except for some explicit sex, including a menage a trois (Jemison writes, "And what do they even call this? It’s not a threesome, or a love triangle. It’s a two-and-a-half-some, an affection dihedron.") there are no English swear words. Instead of fucking this or that, it's "rusting" this or that. "Earthfire!" is another common epithet.

The Fifth Season is a thoughtful, at times suspenseful book that unlike a lot of science fiction, doesn't groan under its own pretentiousness.